Category Archives: Philosophy

Is Kabbalah Rational After All?

Posted on January 31, 2016 by N.S. Palmer

My latest blog post for The Jerusalem Post: “Whereof we cannot speak, about that we must remain silent,”1 advised the Austrian Jewish philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. People are never very good at remaining silent. That’s true even for things we can’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Jewish Philosophy, Judaism, Philosophy, The Jerusalem Post | Tagged Arthur Green, Aryeh Kaplan, Bahir, Bosanquet, Conceptual Idealism, Ehyeh, Idealism, Jewish Mysticism, Kabbalah, Mysticism, Nicholas Rescher, Sefer Yetzirah, Sefirot, Wittgenstein, Yoram Hazony | Leave a comment

Creation But Not Ex Nihilo

Posted on January 16, 2016 by N.S. Palmer

My latest blog post for The Jerusalem Post: How did the world get here? That question didn’t start with the ancient Israelites and it probably won’t end with us. Our scientific attempts to explain the origin of the universe are … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Jewish Philosophy, Judaism, Philosophy, The Jerusalem Post | Tagged Bereshit, Bible, Cosmology, Creation ex nihilo, creation myth, Enuma Elish, Genesis, In the beginning, Jewish Study Bible, Marduk, Robert Alter, Saadia Gaon, Tanakh, Tiamat | 4 Comments

How Theism Has Meaning

Posted on January 11, 2016 by N.S. Palmer

My latest blog for The Jerusalem Post: In ancient times, Jewish faith and practice were different from what they are today. Most people know that. However, they usually don’t know the details and don’t think about the implications. In the … Continue reading →

Posted in Jewish Philosophy, Judaism, Philosophy, The Jerusalem Post | Tagged Anthropomorphic, Brettler, James Kugel, Jewish Study Bible, Meaning of religious beliefs, Philosophy of Religion, The Personhood of God, Theism, Theological Incorrectness, Yochanan Muffs | 1 Comment

Moral Patterns and Moral Decisions

Posted on December 10, 2015 by N.S. Palmer

My new blog post for The Jerusalem Post: Some things in life are simple. Some aren’t. In fact, a lot of them aren’t. That’s a problem, because we always want things to be simple. And if they aren’t, then we still … Continue reading →

Posted in Epistemology, Judaism, Philosophy, The Jerusalem Post | Tagged Binding of Isaac, Deontology, Gestalt Psychology, Ideal Observer, Kant, Moral decision, Moral reasoning, Utilitarianism | 2 Comments

Orthodoxy, Truth, and Half-Belief

Posted on November 26, 2015 by N.S. Palmer

My new blog post for The Jerusalem Post: People who have a secular worldview often wonder how Orthodox Jews can believe what they do: for example, that the Torah is literally true, that God commanded all the mitzvot, or that the … Continue reading →

Posted in Jewish Philosophy, Judaism, Modern Orthodoxy, Philosophy, The Jerusalem Post | Tagged Belief, Epistemology, H.H Price, Jerusalem Post, Jewish tradition, Modern Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy, Religion and Science, Theory of truth | Leave a comment

What Is Faith in God?

Posted on November 2, 2015 by N.S. Palmer

What does it mean to have faith in God? It’s not a simple question. Lately, I’ve been wrestling with The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs, a book that tries to analyze religious belief from a psychological perspective. The author, Solomon Schimmel, … Continue reading →

Posted in Epistemology, Jewish Philosophy, Judaism, Philosophy | Tagged Faith, Judaism, Orthodox Judaism, Religious Skepticism, Schimmel, The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs | 4 Comments

Costs, Benefits, and Beliefs

Posted on October 24, 2015 by N.S. Palmer

By N.S. Palmer I’m puzzled. No worries. It’s my normal state. I’m revising the draft of my book Belief, Truth, and Torah. I want to make it engage more fully with arguments from one of our professors at Hebrew College, … Continue reading →

Posted in Jewish Philosophy, Judaism, Modern Orthodoxy, Philosophy | Tagged Belief, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Ethics of Belief, Orthodox Judaism, Psychology of Belief, Solomon Schimmel, The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs, Torah | Leave a comment

Seeing Life in Context

Posted on October 7, 2015 by N.S. Palmer

As I said the morning prayers today, I realized something: That act sets a context for my whole day. No matter what happens to me today — good, bad, or indifferent — the prayers remind me that it’s not all … Continue reading →

Posted in Epistemology, Jewish Philosophy, Judaism, Philosophy | Tagged Astronomy, Faith, Prayer, Science and Religion, Times of Israel | Leave a comment

Who Is Your Enemy?

Posted on September 17, 2015 by N.S. Palmer

Who is your enemy? One of my friends said that she must have done something right this year, because she had acquired more enemies. Winston Churchill, who was Britain’s prime minister during World War II, would have agreed: “You have enemies? … Continue reading →

Posted in Jewish Philosophy, Philosophy, The Times of Israel | Tagged Benevolence, Enemies, Forgiveness, Marcus Aurelius, Moral Psychology, Morality, Winston Churchill | Leave a comment

In Praise of Sloppy Thinking

Posted on September 7, 2015 by N.S. Palmer

By holding the handles, we can manipulate large amounts of information to solve problems, but we avoid getting bogged down in irrelevant details. Even if the underlying details are incomprehensible or inaccurate, the handle can still work. Continue reading →